Love is Strong And sadly moving heavenward Hail Earth, the Rose of Stars. 507 SONG OF EROS From "Agathon" WHEN love in the faint heart trembles, And the eyes with tears are wet, O, tell me what resembles Thee, young Regret? Violets with dewdrops drooping, Lilies o'erfull of gold, Roses in June rains stooping, That weep for the cold, Bloom, violets, lilies, and roses! But what, young Desire, THE HIGHWAY ALL day long on the highway The King's fleet couriers ride; You may hear the tread of their horses sped Over the country side. They ride for life and they ride for death And they override who tarrieth. With show of color and flush of pride Let them ride on the highway wide. All day long on the highway Is a tramp of an army's feet; You may see them go in a marshaled row With the tale of their arms complete: They march for war and they march for peace, For the lust of gold and fame's increase, For victories sadder than defeat They raise the dust on the highway. All the armies of earth defied, Love dwells in little paths aside. All day long on the highway Rushes an eager band, With straining eyes for a worthless prize That slips from the grasp like sand. And men leave blood where their feet have stood And bow them down unto brass and wood Idols fashioned by their own hand Blind in the dust of the highway. Power and gold and fame denied, Love laughs glad in the paths aside. SONG Louise Driscoll (1875 TAKE it, love! "Twill soon be over, With the thickening of the clover, With the calling of the plover, Take it, take it, lover. Take it, boy! The blossom's falling, And the farewell cuckoo's calling, While the sun and showers are one, Take your love out in the sun. Take it, girl! And fear no after, Take your fill of all this laughter, Laugh or not, the tears will fall, Take the laughter first of all. Richard Le Gallienne [1866 Song "NEVER GIVE ALL THE HEART" NEVER give all the heart, for love For they, for all smooth lips can say, Have given their hearts up to the play, 1 If deaf and dumb and blind with love? William Butler Yeats [1865 SONG I CAME to the door of the House of Love And knocked as the starry night went by; And my true love cried "Who knocks?" and I said "It is I." And Love looked down from a lattice above Where the roses were dry as the lips of the dead: "There is not room in the House of Love For you both," he said. I plucked a leaf from the porch and crept I came once more to the House of Love And my true love cried "Who knocks?" and I said And the great doors opened wide apart Alfred Noyes [1880 "CHILD, CHILD" CHILD, child, love while you can The voice and the eyes and the soul of a man, Never fear though it break your heart Out of the wound new joy will start; Child, child, love while you may, Only by love is life made real; Only through love will you enter heaven. THE young girl questions: "Whether were it better To lie for ever, a warm slug-a-bed, Or to rise up and bide by Fate and Chance, The rawness of the morning, The gibing and the scorning Of the stern Teacher of my ignorance?" "I know not," Wisdom said. " T The young girl questions: "Friend, shall I die calmer, Warm in a dream, or rise to take the worst Of straying in the by-ways, Of hunger for the truth, of drought and thirst?" "We do not know," he said, "Nor may till we be dead." Ford Madox Hucffer [1873 I WHAT shall we do for Love these days? With the renown of our Heaven, And to the unbelievers prove Our service to our dear god, Love? The crowd that pushes through the mire, To amaze the dark heads with strange fire?? If never I held some fragrant flame And openly 'mid men's hurrying stares, Some tower of glittering masonries, Men should see what my heart can sing: Built into stone, a visible glee; I envy one for just one thing: In Cordova of the Moors 'I There dwelt a passion-minded King, PA In a tall palace, shapen so 513 |